I'm working on some larger projects now, and ones I haven't made myself,
so the source browser is becoming very useful to me. I had a few ideas,
since this is the first time it's been really useful to me.
A few observations. I use the class browser to (a) provide a quick
reference for other parts of my API and (b) to jump quickly to other
parts of the program. To speed up both of these, it would be nice to
have the browser hidden while I code, but easily accessible for short
periods of time. I've been jumping back and forth between code windows
and the browser, but this is cumbersome, and the code box in the browser
window is just too small.
It would be cool, really cool, to have it pop-up when I press F10 or
something easy. It would pop up, push my code area down a bit, and let
me browse via keyboard the program structure (keyboard is key, mouse
takes too long). As I scan over other functions and methods, it would
show me the usage somewhere with the docstring, but *not* change the
source code I'm editing unless I press enter.
I should also be able to press spacebar or something, on a method, and
have the usage of the method insert. IE; I'm on a method that looks
like:
def fooMethod(a, b, c, d, e, f, g):
and I press spacebar, and it inserts in my code:
fooMethod(a, b, c, d, e, f, g)
If I press spacebar on a module, it would put the import statement for
it at the top of the code.
Can you give me an idea if you might have an idea for that sometime?
I've never seen anything in an IDE like that, but it would be cool. The
idea being something of a cross between buffer switching in emacs
(switch methods, not just files), and reference that's a little more
browserable than auto-completion.
Some thoughts there... Working on a big project with lots of files, the
class browser has gone from a rarely used to frequently used feature for
me in a couple of weeks.
--
Ken Kinder